


the dead flag blues

by hellalujah



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: A lot of things happen, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Implied Cannibalism, M/M, Murder, Other, Post-Nuclear War, Radiation Sickness, Vomiting, gratuitous queen lyrics, the portgozo is about seventy percent platonic, very few of them are good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 11:52:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellalujah/pseuds/hellalujah
Summary: If he believed in hell Hugo thinks it'd look a lot like this. Burnt out buildings, hot winds that had choked and dried until all the warmth had gone out of the world.It's hard to breathe now for a lot of reasons.





	the dead flag blues

**Author's Note:**

> for kao's birthday last month
> 
> very graphic illness, a lot of character death, gratuitous and sad. going out with a bang
> 
> art by [a](http://abonobon.tumblr.com)
> 
> soundtrack: [godspeed you! black emperor - the dead flag blues](https://youtu.be/XVekJTmtwqM) / [kidnap kid - moments (acoustic)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHfRgjKUZdY) / [kodomo - orange ocean (loscil remix)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JDgKCA3A9E)

_the skyline was beautiful on fire_  
_all twisted metal stretching upwards  
everything washed in a thin orange haze_

-0-

In the end everything was on fire.

Most times all Hugo remembers is the sky. The horizon was burning, a flare of light. Blinding light. Unimaginable, inconceivable heat.

And then the quakes had come, breaking apart cities and forests and mountains. Cracked the earth, shattered it like glass.

The earth hasn’t stopped quaking. The sky hasn't stopped burning. Only now it's gone black, charred and flickering like a coal fire. It's been black since the end, black and orange and red, embers flaring and fading.

If he believed in hell Hugo thinks it'd look a lot like this. Burnt out buildings, hot winds that had choked and dried until all the warmth had gone out of the world.

It's hard to breathe now for a lot of reasons.

\--

Hugo knows he's sick.

He's been having trouble remembering things. Things that should be easy like his age and what year it is and his parents’ names and occasionally his own name. The names of the people he's traveling with - Porter and Mat and… and...

Just Porter and Mat.

There'd been someone before, maybe two someones. He doesn't remember where they'd gone. Doesn't remember their faces but he remembers laughing a lot with them, before the end. After the end.

But it’s just him now, him and Mat and Porter.

He mouths their names to himself, often so he doesn't forget.

“Hugo,” says a voice, hushed and unsure.

Opening his eyes feels like the hardest thing he's ever done. But Porter's watching when he looks and Hugo smiles.

“Porter,” he says. Porter smiles back and brushes fingers through his hair.

“Have some water.” Porter offers up a bottle but doesn’t let go, cups Hugo’s face in his free hand instead to make sure he doesn't spill. They have such little water left. Hugo understands.

“I found a car,” comes Mat's voice from a ways behind him and Hugo almost chokes on his mouthful but he manages to swallow it. Porter's there anyway, pulling the bottle away just in case.

“It runs?” He's rubbing Hugo’s back, like a mother taking care of a child.

Mat hums an affirmative and Hugo smiles up at him when he steps into view. Mat smiles back. He looks tired but Hugo can tell the smile is sincere.

“Road trip with the boys,” Mat says, throwing an awkward thumbs up with one hand, and Hugo laughs.

And then he starts coughing, gagging really, and he’s sure he’s going to throw up the water Porter had so carefully helped him drink. But he breathes in against it, turns his face into Porter’s shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut.

Porter and Mat are both very, very quiet.

“Let’s go,” he whispers once the nausea subsides. It doesn't go away entirely but it eases enough that he can look up into Porter's eyes. Perpetually wide. Perpetually afraid.

“Yeah,” Porter says belatedly. “Let's go.”

\--

They help Hugo into the backseat of the car and Hugo almost laughs at the way they eye each other.

After too-long a pause, “play rock paper scissors,” he suggests and they both flinch and look at him. “To decide who gets to drive. Right?”

Mat's the one who breaks eye contact first, snorts and Porter still looks unsure but finally offers up his fist.

“Eat it, Robinson,” Mat says when he wins - paper over rock - and Porter cracks a smile at that.

“I’m a shitty driver anyway.”

They both hesitate again and Porter scuffs his shoe uncomfortably in the dirt until Hugo stretches his legs out across the backseat. It’s at least partially on purpose, so that neither of them feel strange about leaving him alone.

The car starts, hums to life. Mat makes a triumphant noise and he starts to speak only then something comes through the speakers and they all freeze.

The idea that they're picking up a radio broadcast sends a shiver down Hugo’s spine. Hope is a dangerous commodity but it seeps into him anyway, bright and barbed and catching in his chest. Someone could be out there. Someone could have survived apart from them and there could be shelter, there could be safety somewhere.

And then Hugo recognizes a percussion intro, something he should know but can’t remember.

“It’s the fucking tape deck,” Mat mutters, reaching out and running his fingertips over the console. “Is this a Queen cassette? Christ.”

Porter giggles and Hugo would laugh too if he had the breath.

The car grinds a little when Mat throws it into gear but it starts to move without any further issue. Hugo stares at the front dash dimly. Mat's fingers have left tracks in the dust.

Dust is supposed to be something like seventy-five percent human skin. He remembers that for some reason.

Eventually he must doze off because the voices that drift into his ears feel like they could be in his head, like they could be part of a dream.

“...wonder if Anton made it…”

“...if he could have just run with us…”

Hugo turns his face into the fabric of the seat. He doesn’t open his eyes. The purr of the engine is loud enough that it drowns out the endless ringing in his ears.

There’s a lull in the conversation, long enough that he almost drifts back to sleep. Then Porter sucks in a ragged, forced breath and Hugo’s very much awake again.

“Do you think Dillon… do you think he’s okay?”

Mat doesn’t answer for a very long time.

“I think it’s more likely that he’s okay than Anton is,” he says finally, very quietly.

Porter sniffs. Hugo wonders what they’re talking about.

“Don’t cry.” The car weaves a bit, like maybe Mat had let go of the steering wheel for a second. They’re not going particularly fast, Hugo thinks. It’s not like they’re in a rush. Not like they have anywhere to be. Nothing left but time.

“I’m sorry, I… I’m sorry.” Porter’s voice wobbles.

“It wasn't your fault.”

There’s another span of silence. Hugo’s awake now, though, awake enough that it’ll be an effort to fall back asleep. Porter and Mat are quiet and Freddie Mercury’s voice fills the space between them.

_“...those were the days of our lives, the bad things in life were so few…”_

Porter clears his throat. “Couldn’t we - I mean,” he starts, then falters.

Mat doesn’t respond, doesn’t ask Porter to go on. Like he already knows what Porter’s going to ask.

“ _...those days are all gone now, but one thing is true…”_

Porter sucks in another audible breath.

“Could we go back? Just a bit. Just to see-,”

“Porter.”

_“...when I look and I find I still love you…”_

“Mat, we have a car, we could just… drive off after, I just-,”

The engine makes a noise like a gun going off - Porter yelps, Hugo jolts - and starts to sputter.

“Fuck,” says Mat.

Hugo scoots back into a sitting position, hauls himself up by the handle in the ceiling. The window is cold against the back of his head.

“Guess we’re not going back,” he says softly and Porter and Mat both jump. Porter meets his eyes in the rear view and then looks away, just as quick.

“Yeah,” Porter says. “Guess not.”

No one moves for a long time. Like they could just stay here for a while, rest maybe.

A tremor shakes the car.

“We should go,” Mat says quietly. “Keep moving.”

For an unsteady moment, the span of a blink, a memory flashes behind Hugo’s eyes like a snapshot. Mat and Porter half-carrying him, dragging him away. Anton, shouting. Dillon, wild-eyed, teeth bared.

And then the moment passes and Hugo blinks again, confused.

“Where are we?”

\--

It's cold now.

It's been cold for days, weeks. Maybe months. Hugo would believe that years have passed, with the way Porter and Mat's faces are pale and ashy and aged. Mat’s the oldest of the three of them and now he looks it, even if Hugo and Porter both have inches of height on him.

His expression is tight, always. Hugo misses seeing him and Porter smile. Misses them laughing. He misses when Anton or Dillon would tell stupid jokes, misses Dillon and Mat’s snappish back and forth, misses...

Hugo sits up. Clarity washes over him, brief and raw. Porter is right next to him and Mat’s a few feet away - déjà vu - digging through one of their backpacks.

“Where’s Dillon?”

They both jump at the sound of his voice, Mat straightening up abruptly. Porter’s watching him, mouth twisted into a frown. Hugo can see him out of the corner of his eye.

“He’s gone,” Porter says carefully. “He’s been gone a while.” He doesn’t explain any further and it sounds like it had hurt him to say somehow so Hugo nods.

“Okay,” he says. Then hums thoughtfully. “Where's Anton?” he asks.

Porter and Mat look at each other before Mat meets his eyes.

“He’s gone too,” Mat says after a long pause. It sounds final. Simple, understandable.

“Oh,” Hugo says. “Alright.”

He shimmies down in the dirt, lays his head in Porter's lap. They both seem upset and some part of him feels bad. A distant guilt.

But the exhaustion, bone deep and all-consuming, is easier to focus on. He turns his face into Porter’s jacket and closes his eyes.

\--

The thing Hugo misses the most is blue skies. Clouds, white and cotton soft instead of thunder black. He misses that. He misses rain and humidity and the petrichor of spring.

He inhales. Tries to focus on what’s real.

The dirt under his palm, the ground beneath him. Porter's shoulder, warm and solid under his cheek. Mat's not too far away; Hugo can hear him rustling through their bags, sorting and rationing food.

He's somehow become their unofficial leader in all this and that makes Hugo smile. The reluctant hero.

Hugo exhales. Porter’s fingers dig into his side rhythmically.

He looks up. He stares into the sky and he realizes with a nauseating sort of abruptness that he doesn't remember what it's supposed to look like. He can't remember what blue had looked like.

“Dillon avait des yeux bleus,” he murmurs without really thinking and Porter makes a questioning noise.

“Gotta speak English, french fry,” says Mat, still a few feet away. His voice is tight but gentle and Hugo sighs.

“Dillon,” he says again, then stops because he can't get his lungs to inflate and his chest is aching.

Porter pulls him in closer to his body and suddenly Mat's there, cool knuckles brushing over his cheek.

“Dillon's gone, Hugo,” Porter whispers. His voice breaks.

Hugo laughs.

“I know,” he manages. “I know, he, his…”

He trails off and Porter's hands tighten on him.

“His eyes,” he says finally. “They were blue.”

\--

“...he would have hurt him, or killed him…”

“...wouldn't hurt a fly…”

“...don't be fucking dense, Porter.”

It's Mat's voice, Hugo recognizes it and that feels nice. He smiles to himself. A silly sort of pride.

“Don't be like that,” Porter says weakly. “He’s not… he wasn’t always…”

“I know.” Mat cuts him off neatly, like he can’t stand to listen to Porter talk about it anymore. “But it's not the same anymore. He wasn’t the same anymore.”

They both go quiet at that.

Hugo wonders who they were talking about.

\--

Sometimes he dreams about his parents.

He wonders if either of them are alive. If either of his siblings made it or at least were able to say goodbye.

In his dreams sometimes they're there, and he knows it's them. He knows his family but he can't see their faces or he's forgotten them, and they speak to him but he can't hear their voices or he's forgotten those too.

Maybe it scares him in some ways, the forgetfulness. But he’s so distant now, so removed from himself that it hardly matters.

Sometimes he wakes up and he doesn’t know where he is or who he is or who he’s with.

“Hugo,” he murmurs to himself. That’s who he is. That’s his name.

“Hey,” comes Porter's voice and then he's being hefted into a warm lap.

“Porter and Mat,” he mumbles dreamily, reminds himself, and Porter’s fingers dig into his ribs.

“We’re here,” Porter says, soothing, consoling.

Hugo lets himself close his eyes. Before he falls asleep, though, he breathes their names again. Just in case.

\--

“...burning up…”

Hugo blinks. “What?”

Porter had been talking to him, he knows, they’d been having a conversation only he doesn’t remember what it was about. Doesn’t remember how he ended up sitting down on the ground, propped up against a half-collapsed concrete wall with Porter at his side. Mat’s nowhere to be seen, maybe out looking for supplies.

Last Hugo remembers they were walking.

“You’re burning up,” Porter repeats, more worried this time. His palm is soft where it’s pressed to Hugo’s forehead, kind of cold. But it feels nice.

“Oh,” says Hugo. “I’m a little chilly.”

The look that crosses Porter’s face is only there for the span of a blink and then it’s gone. But Hugo knows he’s worried. More worried than he had been.

“Come here,” Porter murmurs, arranging himself next to Hugo against the wall so he can pull him into his side, under his arm.

Almost automatically Porter’s hand comes up to press gentle nails into his scalp and he sighs when Porter runs his fingers through the length of his hair.

And then Porter makes a strange noise, strangled and wounded and Hugo opens his eyes.

“Don’t look,” Porter tries to say but Hugo’s already blinking up at Porter’s hand. He’s holding a clump of hair, about Hugo’s colour. About his length.

“Oh dear,” Hugo says.

\--

“Here,” Porter says and when Hugo opens his eyes Mat’s there too so he must have been asleep for a while.

Hugo blinks up at Porter. He’s holding his hat in one hand, the red knit one he’d insisted on wearing all of the time before the end and now after. It’s cold enough now that it actually finally makes sense for him to be wearing it and Hugo doesn’t understand why it’s being offered to him.

“What…?”

“Gotta keep warm,” Mat mumbles and Porter smiles at Hugo. Sad, but a smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “Here, try it on.”

Self-consciously, Hugo wonders how much of his hair he’s lost already for them to be offering him this. He doesn’t think it’s much, can’t feel it being any patchier when he touches his scalp himself.

Neither of them say anything about it, either way. Porter reaches up and tugs the beanie onto Hugo’s head, till it’s almost down around his ears.

Hugo beams up at them. “How do I look?”

They both laugh. Mat’s infinitely better at faking casualness than Porter but they both sound sincere.

“Like a nerd,” Mat says at the same time as Porter says, “better than me!”

They look at each other. Porter grins and Mat grins right back.

Hugo starts to laugh and then they’re laughing too and he can almost pretend it’s like it had been before. He can almost pretend the other two - Dillon and Anton, don’t forget, stop forgetting - are here too. That they’re all laughing together. That things might be okay.

And then he turns away and throws up into the dirt. It’s clear, just water. Dimly he remembers Mat urging him to eat something - crackers? Something in a can? Hugo can’t remember and he almost wants to joke about how he can barely remember what he had for breakfast only he really can’t remember and -

He throws up again, a painful heave that wracks his whole body.

It passes and Porter and Mat are much closer than where they’d been. Mat’s got a hand on his shin and Porter’s hovering next to him with a water bottle.

“Sorry,” he says.

“You’re okay,” Porter and Mat say at the same time, or it feels that way as his eyes fall shut.

\--

“...won't make it…”

Hugo doesn't open his eyes.

The voices are far enough away that at first he thinks it's a dream. He dreams so much now, it's hard to tell the difference. Only then he turns his face into the fabric he's resting on - Mat’s jacket, and it smells like him under sweat and dirt and radiation - and the scent is grounding.

“...just going to give up…?”

“...what else we can do…!”

Porter's voice wobbles and he’s crying and that's not a surprise really. Hugo resists the urge to call out, to tell him not to waste fluids. He still doesn't bother opening his eyes.

“You want to leave him behind?”

It's Mat's voice, tense and angry and loud enough that Hugo catches it before Porter starts shushing him desperately.

“He’s just, he’s, he’s so sick, Mat, I don’t know what to do…”

Hugo smiles to himself when he realizes they're arguing about him. Somehow he thought it'd be the other way around, Mat's cool ruthlessness against Porter's emotional reactions.

Mat sighs, an angry exhale. “You’re starting to sound like Dillon.”

There’s a pause before Porter starts to cry harder, tiny, mewling sobs.

Hugo curls tighter on the ground. His muscles ache. He's so tired.

“Porter, I’m sorry, stop crying,” Mat says. His voice is shaking too and that scares Hugo more than Porter crying ever has. “I didn’t mean that. We don’t… we don’t have time for this, we don’t have water, you’ll, fuck, dehydrate yourself-,”

Porter _laughs_ , so loud that Hugo almost flinches. It’s high-pitched and sincere but it's too much like a sob.

“You’re so, you, _Mat_ -,”

His voice cuts off. There’s the airy sound of fabric on fabric and Hugo cracks open his eyes.

Porter’s hugging Mat so tightly to his chest it looks like it must hurt. Mat’s so skinny without his jacket, almost delicate framed between Porter’s broad shoulders, even though they’re both so thin now. They’re all so thin now.

Hugo whimpers.

He wants to be held. He wants them to hold him, wants Porter to squeeze him tight the way he’s crushing Mat right now. Wants Mat’s hands running down his back, so soothing, wants him murmuring in his ear the way he is to Porter.

Neither of them notice the sound he'd made. Or if they had they don't acknowledge it.

He closes his eyes instead and he makes himself breathe through it.

It’ll pass.

\--

It’s another tremor that wakes Hugo at first.

He’s comfortable, curled into Mat’s side. He doesn’t remember Mat coming over to him, doesn’t remember Mat wrapping him up in his arms and for a second he’s almost able to fall back asleep there, nose pressed into Mat’s neck.

Only something else is moving nearby that Hugo can hear even over the shivers of the ground beneath him and he opens his eyes.

In the almost pitch black of night Porter’s figure is hard to make out but Hugo squints and he’s there, slinging his backpack onto one shoulder. Straightening up and he’s silhouetted in a strange, rippling silver light, like the moon is trying to force its way through clouds as thick and black as tar.

He pauses in the doorway - they’re in a building, Hugo doesn’t remember how they’d gotten here but here they are - and glances back at Hugo and Mat. Hugo’s not sure if Porter can see that his eyes are open.

Then Porter turns and starts walking away.

A dream, Hugo thinks, since Porter wouldn’t leave them. He wouldn’t go out alone, wouldn’t abandon them to go off by himself - surely to die, Hugo thinks.

It must be a dream. It must be.

\--

Hugo wakes up and Porter is gone.

Mat’s pacing around the burnt out building they’ve taken cover in - there's a photo frame on the ground, old pill bottles, maybe a doctor’s office - not digging through bags or checking supplies. Just pacing, back and forth. Back and forth. It’s dizzying. Hugo feels sick.

He rolls over and retches, throws up. It’s just a mouthful, he doesn’t have anything else left in him.

“Hey,” comes Mat’s voice and he makes himself roll back over to look up at him.

“Sorry,” Hugo mumbles and he means the mess he’d just made but Mat’s face twists like he’d meant something else.

“S’okay.” Mat kneels next to him. Reaches out and Hugo wraps a weak hand around his wrist to pull himself into a sitting position.

They sit there for a beat. The wind picks up, whistles through the broken windows and what sounds like a can rolls down the street outside.

“Porter’s gone,” Hugo says eventually. Needlessly.

Mat winces. “Yeah.”

Hugo tries to smile. “He’ll be back.”

“Yeah,” Mat says again. He doesn’t sound like he believes it. Not at all.

For some reason the photo frame catches Hugo’s eye and he stares at it. The urge to turn it over and look at the photo inside catches him off guard.

He blinks.

His brain goes very suddenly blank - he looks back up and feels dizzy and confused.

It takes him a terrifyingly long minute to remember who Mat is.

“Where's…” He starts and then stops because he knows, he knows the answers to any of the questions he was going to ask. Or he thinks he knows. He just can't remember.

He licks his lips and looks down at his hands.

“Hey,” says Mat. He cups Hugo's face in both hands and Hugo can only stare hazily into dark eyes. Mat's eyes are nice, he notes. He'd known but he hasn't looked in what feels like a long time.

They're only a little off of Porter's colour. Only slightly darker. He hadn’t noticed that before.

“Pretty,” Hugo murmurs and Mat quirks a sort of half smirk.

“Alright, frenchie.” He thumbs gently at Hugo's cheek. “Whatever you say.”

He lets go and Hugo can feel where his hands had been, tight and hot like a sunburn. He doesn’t want Mat to let go. He doesn’t…

He wonders, abruptly, where Dillon and Anton went. Where Porter went.

“Mat,” he says and his voice breaks. There’s a knot in his throat, a tightness in his chest and for the first time in days - weeks? months? - he’s aware more completely of himself. The ache in his joints, all of his muscles. The _wrong_ ness in his abdomen, like his body is rejecting every one of his organs.

He starts to cry.

Mat’s hands are back a second later, brushing away tears Hugo doesn’t feel like he’s hydrated enough to cry.

“...it’s okay, Hugo, you’re okay,” Mat’s saying when he can make himself listen. “You’re alright, I’m here, it’s fine.”

Hugo breathes in and it drags like a sob. He reaches up and his hands are shaking, arms trembling so violently that he doesn’t even know how he manages to get his hands all the way up, to hook his fingers in Mat’s ragged sweater and hang on as Mat crawls up to straddle him and press their foreheads together.

“It’s okay,” he says.

Hugo cries even though he feels like he has nothing left in him to cry.

“I'm afraid,” he says.

Mat hesitates for a long time before responding.

“Me too.”

\--

For the first time in a long time Hugo is aware of himself as they travel.

He’s leaning heavily on Mat but he’s walking. Dragging his feet but still moving. Shuffling down the dusty, cracked remains of a highway.

It’s cold. It’s always cold.

Mat shudders under his arm and Hugo pulls him in tighter to his side. Even if he feels cold himself, he knows he’s putting off heat like a furnace and maybe he can keep Mat a bit warmer this way at the very least.

“I’m okay, you big idiot,” Mat mutters.

He caught on so quick. Hugo laughs.

“You’re very strong,” he says. Mat makes a dismissive sound but doesn't respond and Hugo thinks he's trying to stifle a smile.

They keep walking, quiet for a while. The landscape is bleak as ever, splintered concrete spread out for miles in front of them.

“I miss coffee,” Hugo says to break the silence and Mat twitches like he’d startled him.

“Oh yeah,” he says eventually, not quite inflected like a question but he’s not ignoring Hugo.

Hugo hums. “Like, you know, waking up in the morning and there are birds chirping and the whole house smells like coffee and breakfast and…” He trails off, lost in the memory more than straining to remember for once.

“And?” Mat prompts. Hugo can’t tell if he sounds concerned or interested.

“You would’ve liked my house in France, I think,” he says, disjointed, but it feels like the right segue. “There is… there was a bamboo garden out back, it was very green and very beautiful. I know you like plants and…”

He trails off again, slows to a stop. He thinks he might throw up, has to squeeze his eyes shut to make the vertigo subside.

“Yeah,” says Mat, fills the space in the conversation. “I like plants a lot. That sounds nice.”

Hugo coughs and spits but he doesn’t throw up. He curls his fingers in Mat’s jacket, reaches up with his other hand to adjust Porter’s hat on his head.

“Do you - did you have a garden?” he manages.

They start to walk again. They’re passing alongside an old ravine, deep and dry, running parallel to the highway. It must have been beautiful before everything burned.

Mat sighs.

“Yeah,” he says, and it takes a longer time than it should for Hugo to remember what they’d been talking about. “On my balconies. Lots of tomatoes and a couple of bean plants, some herbs. Like, food stuff. Flowers too, out on the bottom deck.” He pauses and exhales sharply through his nose. “I had some spider plants inside only my cat kept eating them.”

Hugo wheezes out a laugh and Mat grumbles.

“Qbert was an asshole,” he says, but it’s fond.

“I like cats,” Hugo says absently.

Mat doesn’t respond. Hugo thinks it might have been the wrong thing to say.

He wishes he could have visited Mat’s apartment, met his cat and seen his balcony gardens. He wishes Mat could’ve seen his studio, the bamboo in the yard. Maybe they could have recorded together.

It bothers him, somehow, that they weren’t close before. And now there’s an expiration date on their friendship. On everything.

“I miss the car,” Mat mumbles, almost out of nowhere, and it shakes Hugo out of his thoughts.

He surprises himself by snickering. “Even the Queen cassette?” he asks wryly. Mat snorts.

“ _Especially_ the Queen cassette. Freddie Mercury was an icon, don’t shit on Queen.”

“No, no, you’re right, he-,”

There’s a crack like the world is splitting in two and they both stumble. Another crack and Mat falls to the side, lands hard on his ass in the dirt.

Once he's realized he's still standing Hugo grins at Mat, opens his mouth to make a joke, and then there’s one more crack. Much louder. Much closer.

He looks down.

The ground under his feet is breaking apart, like someone is taking a jackhammer to it.

Mat screams his name.

Hugo falls.

\--

He wakes up and he’s alone.

His head is pounding, agony that radiates from the top of his skull to the base of his spine and for a second the terrifying possibility of paralysis stabs through his addled brain like a knife.

And then he shifts - groans because, god, moving is painful - and gets himself into a sitting position. Not paralyzed. Just bruised to hell and back and his ankle is throbbing like maybe he’d sprained it.

He looks dizzily at his surroundings. There’s not much down here, a ditch filled filled with smooth stones like it could’ve been a riverbed before all the water in the world turned to vapour. Boulders along the edges, a rough path off to his right weaving up the canyon wall. An old hiking trail, maybe.

There’s a cold wind blowing, echoing along stone walls. Eerie.

Hugo takes a breath, touches his ankle gingerly and then flinches back. It’s swollen already, blinding pain. It could be a break for all he knows.

The wind whistles and Hugo thinks of horses with broken legs. He thinks of how useless he was already, so weak, so tired, and now he’s broken a bone and -

Over the sound of the wind there’s a sound like footsteps crunching on gravel and he jolts. He twists around to look, ready to call out Mat’s name.

He goes still. There’s a figure across the riverbed.

But it’s not Mat.

“Dillon?” he calls hesitantly.

Dillon’s head swings toward him and he stares like he’s looking through Hugo instead of at him.

“Hugo?” he whispers and his voice is raw like he hasn’t had a drink in days. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” Hugo says. “Where have you been? What-,”

Dillon staggers, trips over a rock and then slips down the slope of the opposite bank on his back with a yelp. Hugo stares.

“Dillon?” he tries. Dillon sits himself up slowly and lifts his head toward Hugo again.

The flesh around his eyes is ragged and scabbing. Long, jagged scratches down his forehead and cheeks. His eyes are milky white. Not blue.

He's blind.

“Where's Mat?” he rasps. Then pauses, long enough that it feels significant. “And Porter?”

Hugo watches him warily for a moment. He's not sure why he's afraid. Dillon's… he's blind. Harmless. He's their friend and he's blind.

But he remembers… _something_. He remembers Dillon’s fingers curling in his coat, dragging him up off of concrete. Anton shouting, pulling Dillon away. Anton shouting, telling them to run.

Anton shouting. Dillon screaming.

“Where's Anton?” Hugo asks instead of answering.

Dillon's sparse eyebrows go up, eyes widening. “He was right behind me,” he says, then his mouth splits into a grin. “He must be with me, somewhere, somewhere…”

He's trying to right himself, crawling across slippery stones to clamber up the side of the bank. Hugo doesn't think he wants him to make it up to where he is.

“Where are Porter and Mat?” Dillon asks again, fingers scrabbling in the dirt. “I'm so hungry, Hugo. So hungry.”

Hugo swallows. “They're close,” he says, even though he has no way of knowing that for sure. The cliff had been high and the fact that he's alive at all is probably a miracle. Who knows how long it might take for Mat to get down here, or if he’s even trying to get down. If he hasn’t given up on Hugo already.

And Hugo, of course, has no idea where Porter is.

“Good,” says Dillon. Hugo doesn’t miss the smile that curls across his face. Like he knows Hugo is lying. “That’s good.”

There’s a rock under Hugo’s hand, smooth and round, and he closes his fist around it. As if he has the strength to throw it, as if he has the strength to hit Dillon hard enough to get him to back off or even to hit him at all.

“How’re you feeling?” Dillon asks casually as he stumbles gracelessly through stones and dirt.

Hugo licks his lips. “Fine,” he lies. “A little hungry. But fine.”

Dillon _groans._ Like a starving animal.

“I’m hungry too,” he breathes as he reaches the other side of the riverbed. The incline up to where Hugo’s sitting isn’t particularly steep.

Hugo doesn’t answer him this time, shifts his hand back. The rock clicks against another and Dillon lifts his head - he's not quite looking at Hugo, more off over his shoulder. Hugo thinks if he could crawl away it wouldn't be hard to avoid Dillon, to escape.

“I'm so hungry,” Dillon repeats. Even his voice sounds hollow like a stomachache. One foot slips on the ridge and he almost tumbles down into the ditch again. “God, so _hungry_.”

Very carefully Hugo starts to heave himself up and now that he's testing it it feels like his ankle might be twisted, not broken like he'd thought. He could probably walk if he were careful enough. He could probably start hobbling away from Dillon and that's enough to get him up on his feet, shaky, but up.

His good foot slips and a cascade of stones pours down the ditch. Dillon's head jerks up.

“Hugo?” he calls suspiciously.

Hugo doesn't answer.

There's a boulder that Hugo clings to as he shuffles along the ravine wall. Not too much further along the riverbed becomes a canyon, a deep chasm that Hugo can barely see the bottom of. At some point it'd probably been filled with water, all gone now.

“Hugo,” Dillon says again, more tense, and then he’s up on the lip of the ditch. One hand against the dirt wall as he comes after him.

“Leave me alone,” Hugo whispers and Dillon starts striding toward him in earnest.

“ _Hugo!_ ”

Hugo whips around and nearly falls back down, steadies himself and manages to keep moving toward where Mat is practically sprinting down the lip of the cliff.

“Hugo, you’re okay, you-,”

He falters and Hugo realizes he’s seen Dillon.

He runs faster.

“Mat?” Dillon practically coos. “Matty, is that you?”

“Get away from him, Dillon!” Mat shouts and Hugo swears he’s going to slip at any second, that he’s going to go over the side of the ravine and he opens his mouth to warn him and -

Dillon catches him by the hem of his jacket and he yelps.

He doesn’t have it in him to struggle, not anymore. But he crumples like he’s boneless, almost hits the ground before Dillon jerks him back and he ends up falling backwards, knocks Dillon down in the process.

His skull knocks off a rock and his head spins.

When he comes back to himself Mat’s grappling with Dillon, far enough from the edge of the chasm that Hugo doesn’t think they’re going to fall. But Dillon’s bigger than Mat, taller and more muscled even now. A wiry, desperate strength in both of them but Dillon has the advantage.

He throws Mat to the ground and clambers onto him with surprising accuracy.

“Matty,” he coos again. “Matty, I’m so hungry, I missed you-,”

“You’re fucking _nuts_ ,” Mat spits. “Get the fuck off of me, what did you do to Anton-,”

Dillon’s hands close around his neck and Mat’s words are choked off with a quiet gurgle.

“Shh,” Dillon says, squeezing so tight that even from where he’s sprawled on the ground Hugo can see the way his fingers dig into Mat’s skinny neck.

Mat’s mouth is open, eyes squinting, hands wrapping desperately around Dillon’s wrists. He digs in his nails. Hugo tries to move but he can’t.

“I had to, you know I did,” Dillon says in a stage whisper. “I had to do what I did. You would have done the same thing…”

He trails off and giggles, almost nervously.

“He was one of my best friends but… but that doesn’t mean anything now, you know? And...”

Dillon’s wrists start to bleed from the frantic claw of Mat’s fingernails and Dillon shudders, sighs. Sad or something almost believably sad.

“A guy’s gotta eat,” he says.

Understanding hits Hugo like a punch in the gut.

He turns his head and throws up.

Dillon giggles.

There’s a sound, pebbles falling, and at first Hugo thinks maybe it's another tremor, _hopes_ Mat’s struggled his way free but when he looks back he’s still there, clutching weakly at Dillon’s arms. Not clawing anymore. Fingers slipping in blood.

“Dillon,” says a familiar voice and Hugo lifts his head. His mind is swimming but his eyes focus and _Porter’s_ there, not too far off. Shuffling carefully along the plummet of the ravine with his hands up like he’s approaching a wild animal.

Dillon doesn’t move from where he’s sitting across Mat’s stomach, doesn't loosen his grip. Like maybe he hasn't heard Porter calling yet.

Mat’s hands fall away from Dillon’s wrists.

“ _Dillon,_ ” Porter says again, and this time Dillon lifts his head. His sightless eyes go softer. His hands go slack around Mat’s throat.

“Porter?”

“Let him go,” Porter says. His voice shakes but he takes another step forward, hands out even though Dillon can’t see him. “Let him go, Dillon, please.”

Dillon lets go of Mat. Mat doesn’t move.

The wind picks up and Hugo can see Porter’s lips moving. He can’t hear what he’s saying but then Dillon stands up, steps over Mat’s prone body and picks his way carefully across the ridge toward Porter.

“Please,” Hugo tries to say, but he can’t make his voice work. The wind howls.

It's like he's watching an old film. Helpless to stop whatever happens next. He's flickering in and out of consciousness, jump cuts bracketed in dead frames.

Porter reaches up and cups Dillon’s face in both hands. Cut.

 _Don’t touch him_ , he wants to scream. _Leave him alone, leave us alone, don’t leave_ me _alone-,_

Dillon’s milky eyes fall shut and he leans in until they’re forehead-to-forehead. Cut.

_Don’t._

Dillon kisses Porter and Porter kisses back. Something twists in Hugo’s stomach.

Cut.

When Porter pulls away he’s crying, teeth gritted, tears leaving pale tracks in the dirt on his face. The wind dies down, less a rush in Hugo’s ears and more a whistle.

Dillon’s thumb strokes across Porter’s cheek and he’s smiling, he’s smiling and he looks infinitely more sane, more present than he had a minute ago.

“I love you,” he tells Porter.

“I’m sorry,” Porter says.

And then he shoves Dillon and Dillon topples backward into the ravine.

Cut to black.

\--

When Hugo wakes again his head is resting on something firm and warm, something alive. Or something he hopes is alive.

He opens his eyes.

It's Porter's lap, he realizes finally. Rough fabric of his jeans rubbing against Hugo’s cheek as he turns to look up at him. His head throbs when he moves and he makes a little sound, a whimper through his teeth, and Porter’s hand comes up to press to his forehead.

“Oh god,” Porter whispers. “You’re awake, you’re… you’re alive.”

Hugo breathes in. “Yes,” he says hoarsely, throat raw from throwing up and screaming and he's never been so thirsty in his life. “Yeah, I’m… yes.”

It takes him a moment - Porter reaches out jerkily to try and stop him - but he gets himself upright.

“Where’s-,”

He cuts himself off when he looks over at Porter’s other side, where he’s got Mat tucked up under his arm. He’s pale, paler than he had been, bruises in the shape of fingers stark against the white of his neck.

His hands are folded in his lap, smudged in drying blood. Dillon’s blood.

Hugo looks deliberately up at Mat’s face, away from his hands. Opens his mouth again and inhales shakily. It looks like Mat’s breathing, the shallow rise and fall of his chest under his coat.

“He woke up for a bit earlier,” Porter mumbles. “Just - he’s alive, he’s okay and-,”

He stops and squeezes his eyes shut.

He doesn’t go on.

They sit there for a long while, just them and the whistling of the wind through the ravine. Mat’s occasional laboured breathing. Porter’s wet little sighs.

Hugo opens his mouth eventually, again, and he means to say something but then the nausea becomes overwhelming and he tips himself forward. Crawls through the dirt on his hands and knees and throws up. There’s nothing in his stomach, really, just mouthfuls of bile to choke up in painful spasms.

When it passes he turns back over, breathing heavily.

Mat’s sitting up now. Eyes bleary and confused.

“Oh,” Porter’s saying. “Oh, fuck, thank god, fuck-,”

And then Mat’s on his feet, suddenly alert and much faster than Hugo’d thought he’d be able to move, hauling Porter up by his jacket.

“You're a fucking prick,” Mat snaps and his voice is even more raw than Hugo’s had been. An awful, painful rasp..

“I'm sorry,” Porter says. “I'm sorry, I just-,”

“You just _what_ ,” Mat interrupts and his tone is acid. “Thought you'd run off on your own? Give up on Hugo? Give up on-,”

He stops himself, shoves Porter away. He clenches his fists at his sides, white knuckled. The muscles in his neck, under the purpling bruises, are tight like he's holding back from speaking.

‘Give up on _me,_ ’ is what he was going to say.

“It wasn't like that,” Porter mumbles. Hugo blinks over at him and his shoulders are dropped, tense but in such a different way from Mat. “I wasn't leaving.”

“But you did leave,” Mat says, so soft Hugo almost doesn't catch it.

Porter makes a wounded noise and reaches out, takes a few steps toward Mat like he's going to hug him. “I just wanted to find him, I wanted to make sure, Mat-,”

Mat winds up, punches Porter in the face. Porter hits the ground with a thud.

“You're a _fucking_ prick,” Mat spits again, turning away from Porter. Turning toward Hugo.

Hugo watches him silently and Mat's face twists from something angry to something sad.

He comes closer, sinks to his knees next to Hugo. Brushes his hair out of his face and tugs Porter's beanie lower over his ears.

“Are you okay?”

Hugo nods slowly and Mat’s lower lip quivers.

“I’m not leaving you,” he says, so fierce Hugo couldn't doubt him if he wanted to. “I promise.”

Hugo nods. “Okay.”

Mat looks like he wants to cry. But he doesn’t, not even when Porter heaves himself up, crawls over on his hands and knees like a kicked puppy and sits a few feet away, watching them like he wants to reach out. His nose is bleeding, a lazy trickle down to his lips.

Eventually Mat’s the one who reaches out. Immediately, Porter slips in under his arm and buries his face in Mat’s shoulder, wraps a hand around Hugo’s calf. Hugo reaches up - it’s so much effort, he’s so tired, muscles aching - and runs his fingers through Porter’s hair.

“We have to stick together,” Mat says and Porter makes a miserable little sound but he nods.

Mat’s quiet for a moment and Hugo stretches out his free hand to wind their fingers together. Like this they’re all touching, all connected. It feels good.

A cool wind ruffles Mat's hair before Mat leans in to press his forehead to Hugo's collarbone.

“I can’t do this without you,” Mat whispers and Hugo’s not sure which of them he’s talking to. He holds tighter to his hand anyway.

\--

It takes a long time to climb back up the ravine.

Hugo’s ankle isn’t broken, but it’s swollen and already dark purple when they lift his pant leg to check it. He’s even more of a dead weight than he’d been before and he wants to feel guilty. He thinks he’s too tired to feel guilt anymore.

So Porter and Mat loop their arms around his waist and heave him up the hiking trail together. Mat’s wheezing the whole way - “just my throat,” he brushes them off anytime they ask. “I’m fine, shut up.” - but they make it.

When they get to the top Hugo sinks to the ground shakily, exhausted.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

“You’re okay,” Mat and Porter say at the same time. Porter flinches and Hugo can see him look away in his peripherals.

They settle on the ground on either side of Hugo and his hands flutter reflexively. He wants to reach out and touch, to catch their hands in his.

Mat looks angry. Porter looks ashamed.

“Porter,” Hugo says. His voice is hoarse and Porter flinches again, shuffles closer.

“Hugo, I’m-,”

“You’re okay,” he tells him. “You were just doing what you needed to do. It’s okay.”

Porter stares at him and Hugo stares back. There are tears welling up in Porter’s eyes and Hugo smiles, reaches up with a trembling hand to thumb away a tear when it falls.

“Don’t cry,” he murmurs. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I didn’t want him to be alone,” Porter whimpers. “I didn’t - we have each other, and even if I was gone you two would have each other but-,” He chokes, ducks his head.

Hugo lets his hand drop, finally links their hands like he’d wanted to do before. Like he wants to do all the time.

“He was alone,” Porter says miserably. “I didn’t want him to be alone.”

Mat exhales sharply next to them and crawls closer, catches Porter’s free hand in his and Porter jolts. Looks up at Mat with glistening eyes.

“You did what you needed to do,” Mat says through his teeth, like it hurts him to say it but he knows it’s right. He believes it, Hugo can tell. “We - I can’t fault you for that.” He pauses. Bites his lip. His face is smudged in dirt, dark shadows under his eyes. He looks feral, almost. “I forgive you.”

Porter’s head drops and his shoulders shake, quiet sobs. The tears that drip from his face hit the ground like raindrops, soak into the dirt like they were never there at all.

Hugo lowers his head and presses it to Porter’s. Then Mat does the same.

“Thank you,” Porter says, breathless. “Thank you, I’m sorry, thank you…”

Neither of them respond. They don’t have to.

\--

Porter tries to insist that they both sit and rest while he checks out the area; there are a few cars a ways up the road and the likelihood of any of them working is slim but it’s worth checking.

Mat vetoes that immediately.

“We’re staying together,” he says firmly. “Okay?”

Porter nods slowly, guiltily.

So they take their time, rest a while there on the edge of the canyon. The sky is going darker, pushing into the night now. Even though it’s so constantly dark it always feels like night.

Hugo doesn’t think he's imagining the way the clouds seem to be dispersing, though.

Eventually he breathes out and tries to push himself up. He has to stop before he can get to his feet, ends up sitting back down while Mat and Porter fuss quietly over him.

There’s no rush, really. It’s not like they’ve got anywhere to be. Not like they have any time constraints, or -

Hugo twists away from them both and heaves into the dirt. Another mouthful of bile.

Maybe time is a concern.

“Have some water,” Mat rasps and Hugo gives him a significant look when he can force his gaze up. Mat rolls his eyes and takes a sip from the bottle - half empty now and Hugo doesn’t think they have more than three bottles left - before he passes it over to Hugo.

Hugo takes a sip. And then another, until he’s gulping it down desperately. He drinks the rest of the bottle and Mat doesn’t stop him.

“Sorry,” Hugo whispers when he’s finished.

“You need it,” Mat says and there’s no edge in his voice. He’s not upset.

He sounds sad.

\--

They get moving eventually and it’s slow going but Mat keeps a supporting arm around his waist as Porter roots around in the cars. Checking for supplies, checking for keys. For working engines.

Before it hadn’t mattered so much, when Hugo could walk.

He thinks, in passing, about telling them to leave him behind. To let him go, to let him die on his own out here in the wastelands.

But a car engine hums to life not far away and he stops thinking about it. A horn beeps cheerfully and Porter whoops, uncharacteristically loud.

“Y’all need a ride?” he calls over the roof of the car, complete with an exaggerated southern accent.

Mat snickers under his breath and Hugo manages a smile as they shuffle between parked cars to get to Porter.

They crawl into the back - Mat decides, resolutely, to sit with him this time - and Hugo curls up with his feet on the upholstery, tucked under Mat’s arm. This car seems to be running better than the other had, a smoother ride, quieter engine.

“Full tank of gas,” Porter says, like he’s read Hugo’s mind.

Hugo hums and turns his face into Mat’s jacket. He wouldn’t mind a nap, and this seems as good a place as any.

“Hey,” Porter says softly. “How about some music?”

Mat snorts. “Did you find another tape?”

Porter doesn’t respond for a beat and Hugo looks up, meets his eyes in the rearview. They’re crinkled like he’s smiling, cheeks pink.

“I brought the Queen cassette with me,” he mumbles sheepishly.

Mat’s arm tightens around Hugo and he starts to laugh.

“Of course you did,” is all he says as Porter pushes the tape into the deck.

_“...just keep losing my beat - just keep losing and losing - I’m okay, I’m alright…”_

Hugo lets his eyes fall shut. He hadn’t expected seventies rock music to be much of a lullaby, but it’s kind of nice. Especially with Mat holding him so close. Especially with how as he’d closed his eyes Porter was smiling at him - _really_ smiling - in the rearview.

He looks more calm now. Peaceful, almost. Hugo feels sort of peaceful too.

_“I ain’t gonna face no defeat, yeah, yeah…”_

\--

Hugo sleeps.

He doesn’t think he dreams this time, or he’s too exhausted to remember if he does. He knows that he sleeps and Freddie Mercury’s voice drifts in and out of his ears. Mat holds tight to him the whole time and between the purr of the engine and the soft rise and fall of his chest Hugo’s more comfortable than he’s been in weeks. Maybe in what he remembers of his whole life.

He feels happy. Or something close to it.

He thinks, in passing, about how he’s not afraid to die anymore.

\--

At some point he opens his eyes and the sky’s gone lighter again.

Hugo tilts his head back and Mat’s eyes are closed. He looks younger like this, even dirty and bruised as he is. Even with Dillon’s fingers marked out around his neck.

Behind him, outside the car, the clouds glow orange more than red. Beautiful, like a dying fire.

_“...is this the real life…”_

Hugo _laughs_ because he can’t stop it from barking out of him. Mat’s eyes flicker open.

“If you start singing Bohemian Rhapsody I’m throwing myself out of this car,” he mumbles. Porter giggles from the front seat.

“Caught in a landslide,” he sings along, quiet. Playful.

“No escape from reality,” Hugo joins.

“Nope,” Mat says. “Nope, fuck both of you, no more Queen.”

“Look up to the skies and see...”

Mat sighs but he joins in eventually. Hugo winds their fingers together and when he looks up again Mat’s smiling.

\--

The next time Hugo wakes up they’ve stopped.

Mat’s pressing a hand to his cheek, humming his name.

“Good morning,” says Hugo.

Mat’s face floods with relief. Hugo doesn’t really understand why but he’s happy Mat doesn’t look so upset anymore.

“We found the ocean,” Porter says and Hugo looks up to see him twisted around in the front seat. Watching him with the same kind of concern Mat had been looking at him with.

Hugo smiles at him and Porter smiles back.

“Let’s go look.”

It takes some doing to haul him out of the car but they get him out, up on his feet. They clamber up a little slope and his ankle doesn’t hurt so much anymore. Really he’s not feeling much pain at all. A distant throbbing in his head, a quiet nausea that doesn’t bother him as much as it had.

He wonders what it means. But the thought slips from his mind as they come up over the hill and the ocean is spread out in front of them.

Somehow, Hugo realizes, he hadn’t expected it to be there. Like maybe in the firestorm of the end all the oceans and seas and lakes had evaporated. Like there would be no water left in the world.

But it’s there. An expanse of choppy waves, whitecaps farther out. Stretching to the horizon so far he can see the curve of the earth and it’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful.

He breathes in deep and it smells like saltwater, thick and cleansing.

“Smells nice,” he murmurs and Mat’s arm goes tighter around him.

“Yeah,” he hums back. Hugo turns his face into Mat’s hair and takes a big breath.

“You smell nicer,” he says.

Mat laughs and Hugo’s happy.

“You’re gross,” Mat tells him. “I stink.”

“I like it,” Hugo says without thinking about it because he has nothing to hide anymore, no reason to be embarrassed about anything or telling Mat and Porter exactly what he’s thinking or how he’s feeling.

Porter’s a little ways ahead of them, picking his way around rocks and then pausing on the edge of the cliff.

The sky is still burning, orange and charcoal grey like the remnants of a bonfire. It’s beautiful, Hugo thinks again. Porter’s silhouetted in what could be the setting sun and he’s beautiful too.

Waves crash against the rocks. Hugo imagines seabirds calling. Imagines rain falling into the ocean, on his face.

He breathes out a shaky sigh.

“Hey,” says Mat quietly, reaches up to tug Porter’s hat down over his forehead a bit. “You good?”

Hugo hums. He’s tired, kind of wants to close his eyes. Wants to sit down at least, anyway.

“Can we stay here tonight?” he asks eventually.

Mat twitches, a weird motion that should be telling but Hugo’s too groggy to parse it.

“Yeah,” he says. Hand tightening on his waist. “Whatever you want.”

They settle into the dirt - Hugo imagines grass, tall and green or even dried out, how it might feel if he were to reach out and brush his palms through it - and Mat and Porter prop him up between them.

He reaches out automatically to hold both of their hands.

They huddle together and it’s so strangely comfortable. Natural. Watching the light shift subtly. There’s a little gap between the clouds and the ocean and Hugo realizes they might actually be able to see the sunset from here.

Hugo leans his head on Porter’s shoulder and squeezes Mat’s hand.

“Hey,” he whispers. Mat squeezes his hand back. Porter pulls his other hand into his lap, holds it in both of his own.

“What’s up?”

He feels fuzzy and sick but peaceful and he can’t tell who’d responded but he hums.

“I love you both,” he says. “So much.”

Porter makes a sound that could be a sob.

“Love you too,” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” Mat echoes. “We love you too.”

Hugo smiles.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” he says.

The sun flickers out from between pitch-dark clouds and the edge of the earth and it’s almost like the flash of the end all over again. And it sort of is, Hugo thinks. A different kind of end. A better one.

He sighs out a breath, empties his lungs and holds tighter to Mat and Porter.

He’s smiling when his eyes close.

  


-0-

_i said “kiss me, you’re beautiful-_  
_these are truly the last days”_  
  
_you grabbed my hand_  
_and we fell into it_  
_like a daydream  
_ _or a fever_


End file.
